Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999 04:16:44 +0000 From: David Subject: [or-world] (no subject) From: David CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST MORRIS, TATCHELL & WILLIAMS . OUTRAGE! CLAIMS VICTORY. THEY VOW TO ARREST MUGABE SHOULD HE RETURN TO BRITAIN The gay rights group OutRage! claims a "legal and moral victory" after all charges against the "Mugabe Three" - Chris Morris, Peter Tatchell and Alistair Williams - were dropped at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court, London, Friday 10 December 1999. The vindicated defendants walked free from court, jubilantly displaying placards with the words: "Stop Torture! Arrest President Mugabe!" "Should the President returns to Britain, we will arrest him again", said Chris Morris. "and he won't escape a second time. We will ensure that he is detained, as was General Pinochet", said Morris. In court, the Magistrate publicly berated the Crown Prosecution Service for its inept mishandling of the case. Legal costs and expenses were awarded to all three defendants. OutRage! said that the dropping of the charges was "a humiliating climb-down by the Crown Prosecution Service". "The charges have been dropped only to spare politicians the embarrassment of hearing us present evidence about crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe, which was a key part of our defence", said Morris. "It is a shameful abuse of the criminal justice system that our case has been spiked by diplomats, rather than being heard in court. We want to know why the police assisted Mugabe's get-away and ignored the evidence we presented to them at the scene that shows President Mugabe's government’s guilt in grave violations of human rights", said Morris. Co-defendant Alistair Williams added: "The abandoning of the prosecution confirms that we should never have been charged in the first place and vindicates our citizen's arrest of President Mugabe. "The official reason given for dropping the case was 'insufficient evidence'. The Crown had, however, lined up 18 police officers to testify against us, and had 15 minutes of film footage from Sky News. The real reason was not insufficient evidence, but that the evidence favoured our defence. It did not substantiate the charges against us, and confirmed the legality of our actions". "The prosecution was axed for the political motive of not embarrassing the police and government. They were terrified that our trial would have established that torture is illegal under British law, thereby paving the way for the arrest of any torturer who sets foot on British soil", said Williams. According to Peter Tatchell, the other defendant in the "Mugabe Three" prosecution: "This case highlights the double standards of the British government and legal system. General Pinochet, has been arrested for human rights abuses, while President Mugabe is allowed to come and go as he pleases, despite his government's equally grisly abuse of human rights. Mugabe's human rights record is arguably worse than Pinochet's: the massacres in Matabeleland, torture of journalists, press censorship, violent suppression of peaceful protests, and his attacks on the gay community". "It seems that Britain has one rule for left-wing African tyrants and another for right-wing Latin American despots. Britain has signed and pledged to uphold the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, which is enforceable in British law under Section 134 of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act. If the government is unwilling to enforce this legislation in a consistent and uniform manner, perhaps it would be more honest to annul Britain's ratification of the 1984 Convention and openly tolerate the use of torture by the Mugabe regime. What was particularly sickening about Mugabe's visit to London was that this so-called "socialist" and "Marxist" had come here to go shopping at Harrods, while millions of his fellow Zimbabweans are living in poverty and on the verge of starvation", said Tatchell. OutRage! 0171.240.0200; Outreach@OutRage.org.uk --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- *** Make holiday parties more fun, less stress *** Try seeUthere.com: the easier way to organize great events. Click on FREE OFFER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Community email addresses: Subscribe: or-world-subscribe@onelist.com Unsubscribe: or-world-unsubscribe@onelist.com List owner: or-world-owner@onelist.com URL's: http://www.outrage.org.uk http://www.onelist.com/community/or-world